Colombia’s first rainy season this year left at least 42 people dead.
Seven people are missing and approximately 80,000 are affected, the
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said Monday.
According to the relief organization, some 18 thousand families in 155 municipalities were forced to leave their homes, because of heavy rainfalls and the consequent overflowing of rivers, ICRC relief director Carlos Ivan Marquez told Caracol Radio.
Some ten thousand houses are severely damaged and 500 were completely destroyed, Marquez said.
The Córdoba department is hit hardest by the weather. A mudslide nearly wiped away the village of San Juan, whose inhabitants will have to be housed elsewhere. Relief organizations in the northern department are providing food and temporary shelter.
Dozens are killed by Colombia’s tropical rains and the following overflow of rivers, landslides and mudslides every year.